The Mighty Fall But Not For Long

Ask Martha Stewart: We Love Celebrities, And We Love To Forgive Their Sins.

December 24, 2004|By Greg Morago, the Hartford Courant

Even before Martha Stewart set one Gucci-loafered foot in prison, the wheels of redemption were turning. If the public doubted for a moment that a resurrection of her career, reputation and social standing weren't being meticulously "handled," it only had to hear the recent news that Stewart is being afforded a comeback sure to pull in Survivor-scale ratings.

Just this month, NBC and Mark Burnett, the reality-television genie responsible for Survivor and The Apprentice, announced they had reached a deal with Stewart's company to bring the domestic diva back to morning television after she is released from prison next year. There is also talk of a prime-time reality-television series starring the woman who was convicted in March of lying to federal investigators about a stock sale.

How the mighty fall. And how the mighty rise -- again and again, so it seems.

Stewart's promise of a squeaky-clean new slate before she has even finished serving her prison sentence is just the latest example of the second (and sometimes third and fourth) lives enjoyed by tarnished celebrities.

Short of claims of murder (nobody is too eager to cozy up to Robert Blake or Phil Spector at the moment), it seems that stars can get away with almost anything these days. No matter how bad the gaffe, how big the bomb, how messy the affair, how embarrassing the indiscretion, how odious the behavior or how felonious the crime, there is a celebrity-hungry public all too willing to forgive and forget.

Even public figures who aren't technically celebrities -- take Bernard Kerik, for example -- enjoy the forgiving nature of the American public. How long will it be before Kerik, embarrassed by having to withdraw from consideration as homeland security secretary, will be back as a shining symbol of safety?

Even former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, also humbled by the Kerik nomination meltdown (he apologized to President Bush), will probably emerge unscarred by the fiasco.

Membership has its rewards, and rewards for membership in the celebrity club are great, indeed, especially when it comes to redemption.

"It all goes back to the same thing: In today's world there's a great saturation of information, saturation of media. You end up becoming desensitized to celebrity quirks that would have been a big deal 20 years ago," said Sean Cassidy, president of Dan Klores Communications, a public-relations company that has handled clients such as Paris Hilton and Sean Combs -- no strangers to the celebrity pages.

"There's so much going on that what happens is your attention moves on to something else; you're on to the next thing."

The faster we move as a society, the more information we process, the more we clamor for celebrity news -- all of those are factors in our forgiving of celebrity scandal, public-relations experts said.

"Everything is quick, sound-bited and bulleted. People come away with quick impressions rather than a lasting understanding of the situation," said Bill Field, president of the public relations company Mintz & Hoke.

That weak, fleeting grasp of a "situation'' that befalls a celebrity works to the advantage of the celebrity recovering from scandal. Hey, it has worked for the likes of Hilton, Ashlee Simpson, Lindsay Lohan, Tara Reid and the Olsen twins -- just a few of the boldface names we can't get enough of.

"People are fascinated by entertainers. It's because people are living their lives through the lives of others. That's what drives the Entertainment Tonights and the Access Hollywoods and, in theory, all the reality shows," Field said. "It all works in tandem. A huge percentage is based on the pure fascination we have in our society of celebrities as a whole. We hold them on a pedestal, and it's oftentimes difficult to see them in real life."

Our very hunger for celebrity news has contributed to the celebrity-redemption phenomenon, said Alison Brod, head of Alison Brod Public Relations in New York.

"Stars are created so quickly now because the entertainment magazines need to fill their pages and corporate brands need familiar faces to help cut through the clutter to sell their products," Brod said. "The media needs to fill the demand from readers who want to smell like, look like and have sex like celebrities."

How did this happen? Brod said a key turning point was the public reaction to the arrest in June 1995 of Hugh Grant for soliciting sex services from Divine Brown. Ironically, the careers of both were boosted from a situation that might have been the kiss of death in a less forgiving Hollywood of the past.

"That changed the mold. They had him on The Tonight Show almost as he was zipping up his pants. He went on the show, blushed a little, endured a couple ribs from Jay, and it was all over," Brod said. "The worst scenario was when Janet Jackson followed that route on Letterman and then refused to speak or attempt to charm anyone" after her breast was exposed on national television. "So I think it has to be done right."